Способы выражения каритивной семантики в горномарийском языке [The Expression of Caritive Semantics in Hill Mari]

Abstract

This paper deals with caritive constructions in Hill Mari, which are formed with the case affix -de ’CAR’ or with the combination of the elative postposition gӛc and the lexeme pasna ’separate’. Caritive phrases with these items are used adverbially and modify the subject or the direct object (or the situation itself), meaning the absence of an entity in a situation. Attributive uses are available only for the marker -dǝ̑mǝ̑/-dӛmӛ ’NEG.PTCP/ATTR’. Such predicative vs. attributive opposition of markers is not infrequent for the Uralic languages. Even though the features of caritive phrases with -de and gӛc pasna are similar, there are some differences between them. For example, the former cannot be used with 1st and 2nd person pronouns and overall is more felicitous with inanimate nouns. It can also attach to a verbal stem, ­deriving a negative converb. The construction gӛc pasna can attach neither to a verbal stem, nor to a nominalized verb form. However, it can attach to nominalizations in exceptive constructions — the type of constructions unavailable for -de.

Keywords

• hill mari; finno-ugric; caritive; exceptive; negation